insurgents under General Mola have successfully prosecuted their advance on Bilbao : by Wednesday, having entered the flaming ruins of Amorebieta in the morning, they were in a...

a general conviction that hopeful developments in the Indian situation are at hand, there is no very obvious ground for his optimism. Lord Brabourne, just in transition from the...

confounded many who have confidently predicted that the Government must move progressively to the Left. The new Cabinet, with Dr. Negrinas Prime Minister, consists of three...

the Supreme Court in the United States enters another phase with the rejection by the Judicial Committee of the Senate on Tuesday of President Roosevelt's plan for changing the...

the United States this week have aroused, and are calculated to arouse, very different emotions. When an American Cardinal, apparently of German extraction, refers to Herr...

to the Prefectural Governors on Monday, Mr. Sato, the Japanese Foreign Minister, once again insisted on Japan's pacific intentions towards China. The hostility which Japan meets...

A decree issued this week in Moscow places the U.S.S.R. under a severe military control ; in the thirteen military districts councils of three, directly subordinate to the...

speeches which were a great deal more than merely formal. Mr. Mackenzie King, as might be expected in view of the con- victions he is known to hold, and of his recent...

against the English climate ; but the most reasonable, the dirt and fog of our great cities, is largely due to man and not to Nature. It is gratifying to learn, from the...

for complaints of neglect of films as a means of education in this country. According to a report of the British Film Institute, there are 68o film projectors in use in the...

every part of the world, not least in Spanish waters, the great assemblage of 145 warships that the King reviewed on Thursday was only part of a force which even in peace time...

strike, which is now entering on its fourth week, will be largely dermined by the response the tram and trolley men make to the busmen's appeal to them to come out in sympathy....

of England is strikingly illustrated by the successful issue of a writ of Habeas Corpus, embodied in a formal statute in the reign of Charles II, but going back in principle to...

on Sunday to dissolve itself is undoubtedly, from its own point of view, politic. If the League had decided to remain in being, and to continue its Unity campaign with the...

T O judge from the Italian Press and some of the speeches and actions of Italian politicians the relations between Italy and Great Britain are as bad as relations between any...

F EW politicians have inspired such sincere respect as Philip Snowden, on the part of opponents as well as colleagues. Yet it was in some respects curiously earned. The son of a...

T HE psychological value of the Coronation films seems to me enormous. We have grown almost blasé about the marvels of radio, and read without emotion of the perfect reception...

By V. S. PRITCHETT T IKE one of the straggling, famished and bleeding mule- ' A teams which used slowly to wander over the roads of Castile, the Spanish war drags on. Every now...

By DAVID THOMSON W HAT is the Communist principle of distribution ? Is it " From each according to his ability, to each recording to his work " ? Or is it " according to his...

By S. K. RATCLIFFE S OME three years before her accession the little Princess Victoria ran one day to her mother in Kensington Palace delightedly holding out a publisher's...

By PROFESSOR F. A. E. CREW T HE most notable effect of the impact of evolutionary biology upon human thought has been the diffusion of the creed that the future of mankind and...

Syrian nationalists regard Syria and Lebanon as one indi- visible unity, and it does not seem impossible that sooner or later the two countries may indeed amalgamate in some...

By PHILIP HEWITT-MYRIXG " y ou will observe," said the Mayor's secretary, smiling sadly, " that your first name appears on your birth- certificate, the official copy of which...

Comm the loss and gains And the last dead flower removed : In all this wintry room remains Nothing I knew and loved. Only the tongue lets fall A name I shall not miss, Hands...

By E. L. WOODWARD IF the afternoon had been fine, we should have taken a canoe, and spent two lazy hours in the middle reaches of the Cherwell ; a hundred miles, and yet only a...

Commonwealth and Foreign By MAX SALVADORI IN the East African territories, from Eritrea to Nyasaland, the density of population is 18.7 per sq. in. ; in Europe, without...

Martin's SIX successful novels, the programme informs us, stand to Miss Fisher's credit ; her most popular play ran in the West End for over a year ; and her last book is...

THE CINEMA This delightful film, which did not appeal to the Film Censor, has been licensed by the L.C.C., and in all probability will, for some time to come, draw the same...

THE THEATRE MR. JAMES CARAVAL, general practitioner in crime and specialist in blackmail and poisons unknown outside stage pharmacology, invited to dinner four persons, each of...

Three Exhibitions IT used to be said, with half-apologetic surprise, that Renoir was a great artist, in spite of the fact that he habitually painted agreeable subjects, this...

Italian Singing at Covent Garden IF some recent criticisms of mine upon singing have seemed to my readers unduly severe, let them go to Covent Garden on an evening when Signor...

A Dreaded Date The Coronation fell on the feast day of one of the Drei Elm - inner, whose maleficent activities are recorded by the most famous of Austrian botanists. The...

[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. The most suitable length is that of one of our " News of the Week" paragraphs. Signed...

SIR,—Your article in The Spectator of May 14th claims, first, that it is the duty of working-men to accept impartial arbitration, presumably in every case ; and, secondly, that...

SIR,—In your last editorial note, May 14th, you agree with Mr. Arthur Hayday's complaint that dieticians talk in terms of calories, vitamins and proteins, which mean nothing to...

Government have taken a wise and necessary step in setting up the Departmental Committee under the distin- guished chairmanship of Mr. Norman Birkett, K.C., " to enquire into...

It is unfortunate that though he no longer has public services to perform an equal generosity has not been shown to the Duke of Windsor for whom no provision has been made." The...

THE SPECTATOR.] Sta,—In last week's issue Mr. Robert Bernays comments on the reception of the Holy Communion by the King and Queen in the presence of pagans. The same thought...

of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR, —The surprising lapse in The Times first leading article published on the morning after the Coronation seems to me worth noting : I have seen no...

Sut,—Though not relevant to my original point, it is a matter of some interest to note that your correspondent, Mr. Gedge, ,should have fallen into the same trap as the Dean of...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sit,—It used to be said that the change of Ceylon to Java was forced upon the author because the British Public refused to recognise Ceylon as...

of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—" Ouida " is easy to make fun of. She was eccentric and almost morbidly romantic, and occasionally wrote about things of which she knew nothing, e.g., "...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—AS one who had the pleasure last autumn of a tour through Westphalia—industrially speaking the Lancashire and Yorkshire of Germany—I read...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sut,—I write to thank you for the long and prominent review you gave to my Grey Steel in your edition of May 7th. Would you allow me to reply...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sia,—Your correspondent, Mr. J. Roberson Day, speaks of the reference to the pool of Siloam as being a misquotation, St. John, Chapter v,...

the words " all rowed fast but none so fast as stroke." This is a wicked invention by Andrew Lang But in Under Two Flags . she did write about " the Seraph," the languid but...

of Merton in which I believe the untrained hero accomplished [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] this feat of oarsmanship. I forget the name of the author, but I do not think it...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sia,--,---Trusted with the review of my book, Red, White and Spain, in your issue of May 14th, Mr. V. S. Pritchett, because of virulent...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Today for the first time I saw the beautiful lake of Hawes Water. The approach 'from Shap is disfigured by masses of tin huts, and the...

that Ouida wrote of her hero— an Oxford man—that " he jumped into his College Barge and poled swiftly down the river." Is this also mere legend ?- Yours, &c., • CLIVE PARRY....

fancy your correspondents, Mr. Keith Briant and Major Frank Savile, will find the passage that they are seeking in Ouida's Under Two Flags, ch. II, The Loose Box and the...

[D'un correspondant parisieni 7ENU pour la Pentecote, un ami anglais ne cessait d'admirer aci _burs de nos promenades les parcs a la francaise, avec !curs futaies rectilignes et...

BOOKS OF THE DAY By JOHN CARTER By the death of Thomas J. Wise, the world of books (which is a different place from the literary world) loses one of its best known and at the...

Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs. By W. K. Hancock. (Oxford University Press. 25s.) The British Empire. Report by a Study Group of the Royal Institute of International...

Back from the U.S.S.R. By Andre Gide. (Secker and Warburg. 2S. 6d.) The Revolution Betrayed. By Leon Trotsky. (Faber and Faber. I2S. 6d.) The Moscow Trial. (January, 1937.)...

The Recovery Problem in the United States. (Washington : The Brookings Institution. London : Faber and Faber. i5s.) NRA Economic Planning. By Charles Frederick Roos, Ph.D....

The Syrian Desert. Caravans. Travels. Exploration. By C. P. Grant, M.A., Ph.D. (Black. 18s.) A Boos can earn a reader's gratitude in no more heartening and satisfying way than...

A Rebel in a Crinoline. By Malvida von Meysenbug. Trans- lated by Elsa von Meysenbug Lyons. (Allen and Unwin. 12S. 6d.) DANIEL HAUVY has called this book " one of the most...

A VOICE. IN THE WILDERNESS " Cheiteiton. By Emile Canunaerts. (Methuen. 8s. 6d.) TOWARDS the end of his thoughtful and affectionate study or a man who was at once his friend...

Plato Today. By R. H. S. Crossman. (Allen and Unwin. 7si, 6d.) Tills book was in intention a reprint of the broadcast talks delivered by Mr. Crossman a year ago. In these talks...

published for the British School at Rome, has a precise and limited purpose. The author deals, roughly, with the Italian artists who worked in Rome from the accession of Urban...

Holtby. (Collins. tos. 6d,) WHEN she was only about twenty-four, Miss Holtby wrote in one of these letters : " On Friday I held an open-air meeting outside Hampstead Tube...

By E. B. C. JONES The Crown-Ups. By Catherine Whitcomb. (Chatto and Windus. 73. 6d.) Brother Petroc's Return. By S. M. C. (Chatto and Windus. 6s.) Pennybridge. By Franklin...

CURRENT LITERATURE By Nikolai Gubsky Mr. Gubsky's career began in an aristocratic Lytzey where the cadets were allowed a moral freedom to be envied even by their elders...

and Grayson, 8s. 6d.), like its title, is more informative than attractive. Both, however, are honest and nobody in search of thrills can blame Mr. Workman if he is dis-...

book (Robert Hale, I2S. 6d.) as a modern example of the antiquarian guesswork which Haverfield and his disciples have for half a century been trying to replace by facts. The...

their bicycles . pet names. The experienced travel-book reader will therefore expect to be frequently bored by the cycle's human reactions to bad roads, steep hills and...

value to those who have the liberty, means and enter- prise to spend most of their time sailing. Mrs. Jameson, the author, and her husband lived in their boat for seven years...

its title. He gives us vivid and exciting glinifses of the most unusual aspects of Indian life. Or, when his material is-nOt new, he presents it from a new angle, which one...

Books describing and illustrating the Thames are innumerable, and a new- comer has to have first-class quali- fications if it is to find room on an already overcrowded shelf....

WHEN will somebody put the market out of its misery by ending once and for all the Great Gold Scare ? Uncertainty about the future price of gold has now supplanted the N.D.C. as...

Jr would be interesting to discover, by secret ballot or any humourless and solemn method you like, exactly what everybody means when he says he enjoys his motoring. Is it the...

FINANCE I WONDER if there are many readers of The Spectator who will know for what the letters which form the title of this article stand. In the City or, at all events, in...

OXYGEN PROFITS. SENSATIONAL profits such as those disclosed in the Report of the British Oxygen Company go far to explain the speculative interest which still exists in some of...

BY ZENo • pt prize of a Book Token for one g uinea will be g iven to the sender of the fi rst correct s o lution of this week's crossword puzzle to be opened. Envelopes should...

The winner of Crossword No. 242 is the Rev. A. C. Rees, Mytholmroyd Vicarage, Yorkshire.